


The Grave

by Frenchibi



Series: Inktober 2018 [2]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Creepy, Day 5 The Grave, Day 8 Star, Gen, Halloween, Inktober 2018, Short Story, Supernatural Elements, Witches
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-04
Updated: 2018-10-09
Packaged: 2019-07-25 08:43:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,245
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16194062
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Frenchibi/pseuds/Frenchibi
Summary: “This was sitting on the stone! And it was burning!”“So why did you move it? Put it back!”Jamie clutches the little jar to his chest, rattling the candle inside it. “I was only-”“You don’t take things that belong to dead people!”





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [notInvidia](https://archiveofourown.org/users/notInvidia/gifts).



> Hi! Yes, I'm doing Inktober! Yes, I'm already a few days behind. Also, some of the prompts I'll be doing will be art! I'll put links to the pics when I have them, I guess? (Also I'm using 4 different prompt lists because I wasn't satisfied with the official prompts lmao talk about indecisive)
> 
> This one's for @notinvidia bc she's always asking me to write something that's not HQ, and to work on my original stuff. So have this, binch!

“It’s right over here,” Jamie calls, already bounding ahead. Lucy follows with slower steps - not quite apprehensive, just nowhere near as excited.

“I believe you,” she says, without real effort. “Can we go home now?”

“No way! You’ll say I lied, I need you to see it!”

“Stop yelling. It’s disrespectful.”

She looks over her shoulder at the only other person in the vicinity; a very old lady carrying a pot of petunias. She’s walking away from them, though, and doesn’t seem to have heard.

“Luce! Over here!” Jamie hisses, and she turns back to see him crouching down a couple feet away, beside a large, simple headstone.

It looks no different than the graves around it at first glance - rough, weathered stone, with a slab of rock on the ground in front of it marking the place of burial. However-

“You see?” Jamie asks, excitedly grabbing Lucy’s sleeve and pulling her down beside him. She gasps a little at the motion, and shakily finds her balance before her skirt gets covered in dirt-

Because there’s dirt everywhere. As if the grave had been freshly dug. The old rock looks steady, but the ground around it is disturbed and, where Jamie is pointing, it shows signs of having been moved.

Lucy’s eyes widen, then narrow.

“Right?” Jamie exclaims. “Creepy!”

She frowns, looking around. “Maybe there was another death in the family-”

“Nope!” Jamie jumps up and gestures to the headstone. “See? No new engraving, or even a wooden placeholder-thingy. The names are so old you can’t even read them right!”

Lucy squints, but it’s true. The stone has probably braved decades, if not centuries of wind and weather. Plus, there are no fresh flowers, just grass and weeds and a couple of thorny bushes that must have survived many a winter.

“But you know the weirdest thing?”

Jamie reaches behind the stone, and pulls out something small and-

Lucy gasps. “Hey!”

“This was sitting on the stone! And it was burning!”

“So why did you move it? Put it back!”

Jamie clutches the little jar to his chest, rattling the candle inside it.

“I was only-”

“You don’t take things that belong to dead people!”

Jamie’s expression has gone sour. “I know that!”

“So put it back,” Lucy hisses, getting to her feet and dusting off her skirt. “Now.”

“Ugh. Fine.”

“You’d better have a lighter.”

“Of course I have- hey. Don’t you dare tell my mum I took it.”

Lucy purses her lips, knowing full well that Mrs. Whitton hates her son playing with fire. “I don’t care. Turn the candle back on.”

Jamie grumbles something, but he does as she says, stepping back to reveal a tiny speck of light against the dark stone.

“Happy now?”

Lucy crosses her arms in front of her chest. “It’s not worse.”

Jamie shoots her a look like he’s judging whether or not to argue, but he seems to decide it’s not worth it.

“...but it’s freaky, right? Someone’s clearly been around here, and there must be a reason!”

Lucy sighs.

“You need to stop reading those ghost stories, James,” she says, emphasizing the last word.

He scoffs. “You’re not my mother,  _ Lucille.” _

“That’s NOT my name!”

“So why'd you gotta butcher mine?!”

“Because you’re being stupid!”

“Oh yeah? Well, next time I just won’t show you my discoveries, then!”

Lucy sticks out her tongue, already beginning to walk away. “Sure you will, cause no one else wants to listen to them!”

“You take that back!”

 

~

 

Lucy waits for the night sky’s clouds to obscure the moon before she sneaks out the back door. She’s thrown a large jumper over her pajamas and packed her favorite purse, which she’s now clutching to her chest

“There’s no need to be afraid,” she whispers to herself, even as the garden gate creaks softly when she pushes it open. She freezes, waiting for a sound from the dark house - but there’s nothing.

The streets are empty, and yet she hops from shadow to shadow, careful to remain out of sight. It’s too risky, to be caught at this hour. Oh, the trouble - it’d happened once before, in the last town - and it’d been way, way too tedious to explain away. Some people aren’t so susceptible to “maybe you just dreamed it.”

She sighs at the memory. But moving here had been a good idea, given the… potential. Silently, she thanks her parents for their own suggestibility - and for their deep, uninterrupted sleep cycles.

 

The gate to the cemetery is too tall to scale - plus, climbing would leave Lucy way too exposed. She knows the iron chain is not just for show, either - but it might be persuaded.

(As is true for so many things. The world is full of suggestions.)

She draws it closed behind her, so as not to arouse suspicion.

The shadows are longer inside, and eerier. The moon has decided to show herself again, and Lucy hears her heart beat loudly in her ears. Not only that, the creepy soft light of the candles that are still lit isn’t helping the matter.

It’s a good thing her feet know where to carry her.

She kneels in the dirt, knowing full-well she’ll have to come up with a story to explain the stains tomorrow morning - but this is urgent, and worth the sacrifice.

The tiny candle inside the jar is flickering, but alive. She exhales in relief, cradling it to her chest.

“I’m sorry for Jamie,” she says, eyes pressed shut. The shadows from the fire dance on the inside of her eyelids, and she shudders with the gust of wind that sweeps over her. “He’s just curious, and overeager. Please don’t punish him.”

A flutter of wings, the coo of an owl somewhere above. Lucy shudders again.

“I know. I know, and I’m sorry. He didn’t mean any harm.”

Somewhere across the way, a raven caws.

“There’s no need to be afraid,” Lucy repeats to herself. “There’s no need to be afraid.”

The candlelight spikes, and her eyes flick open.

The flame has hopped off the wick, and is now hovering outside the small jar. The wind seems to gather around it, stoking it, allowing it to grow larger and larger. The heat takes away the shudders in her bones, and she finds herself looking back at the figure before her with a strange calm.

_ Indeed, _ says a voice of crackling embers.  _ There’s no need to be afraid. After all… the scariest thing in the night… is you. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Side note: I wrote this at 2am and made myself really jumpy #rip  
> What time is it for you rn? :'D Also was this creepy enough I am so inexperienced with writing things that aren't fluff lmfao pls give me feedback I'm trying


	2. Star

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's the next part!! This was for day 8, with the prompt "Star".  
> Days 1, 2, and 7 are Artworks, to be found on my tumblr!

Lucy shoves her hands deeper into her pockets, kicking up stray leaves as she trudges along the cobbled road towards home.

Jamie’s talking beside her, as always, but Lucy’s not really listening. She really doesn’t know what the big deal is about Amy from class B, or why he seems so obsessed with her all of a sudden.

They pass the tall iron gate of the cemetery, and she ducks her face into her scarf.

Yeah, she doesn’t have time to worry about school or boyfriends or any of that crap. If she’s not careful, there’ll be accidents. After all, Jamie himself was a close call for a while.

Her eyes flick up (up? Since when is he taller?) to his face, but he hasn’t noticed her distraction at all. (No more than the danger that he’s been in, no matter how narrow his escape.)

“...so Parker tells me that she’s staring, right? And I’m like ‘there’s no way, dude’ but I looked over and she and her friends _totally_ start giggling like crazy, and-”

“Why don’t you ask her out, then?”

Jamie blinks, startled. “What?”

“Amy. Seems like she likes you, no?” And she’s popular. She’d be a good match for him - the smiley jock and the junior princess. Perfect.

“Nah. I mean. I guess maybe… But I’m not gonna-”

Lucy rolls her eyes. “Still haven’t grown any backbone, I see.”

He shoves her shoulder. “Shut up.”

Lucy opens her mouth to retort, but something catches her eye and makes her stop, and lower the arm she’d just raised to retaliate. She’s not subtle enough, though, because Jamie follows her gaze - and flinches.

“Hey! Hey, Whitton!”

Jamie raises a half-hearted arm to the guys from his class on the other side of the road, but Lucy can feel him tense up beside her.

“Better watch your back, dude! Don’t want your backpack full of maggots!”

Jamie glances down at her, and she sees the guilt, the conflict, the budding apology that he’s never going to voice.

Her resolve hardens. She bares her teeth and lets out a hiss, followed by a wide grin. “Oh you haven’t heard? I’m a _witch!”_

“Luce-”

“Better not get caught walking home with me!”

And she skips ahead, ignoring the laughter from the boys, and the sting in her chest, because the only feeling she’s getting from Jamie is relief.

 

She’s not even fully closed her door when the flame on the candle on her desk springs to life rather violently, leaping off the wick and hovering a couple inches over the desk, pulsating. It’s green today - a color that seems vaguely familiar, somehow.

“I thought we had an agreement,” she hisses, back pressed against the door even after turning the key in the lock, “that you wouldn’t expose me!”

She hears the now-familiar whoosh that she’s come to associate with laughter, and the flame twitches.

_Oh, I wouldn’t do that to you, darling. After all - you’re our legacy. Why would I wish to harm you?_

“Don’t test me. I know what you want me to do, and I will _not.”_

_The world would be so much better for it! Foolish mortals, they wouldn’t even know the difference, and you could finally stop hiding your gifts-_

She drops her bag onto the floor and turns away, flopping down onto the bed. “I will NOT.”

“...it’s a crying shame.”

Lucy freezes at the new voice, her entire body tensing up.

She twists around, hoping, _praying_ , even though she already knows what she’ll see.

The woman is standing in the center of the room, experimentally stretching her arms out in front of her. She must have been beautiful once - long, flowing hair and a handsome jawline reminiscent of a better time. Striking features indeed - if not for the far more shocking and noticeable traits: translucent skin that barely conceals bone, hollow eyes as black as an endless abyss - and the green flame, hovering now where her heart would have been, many, many years ago.

She turns her face towards Lucy and smiles, and Lucy tenses to keep from shuddering. Her gaze is eerie and cold, unforgiving even when she’s trying to be kind - altogether incredibly unsettling.

“You’ve grown, darling,” she says, in a voice that has no business being so clear, sharp like a whetted knife.

“I-I wasn’t expecting you to be back so soon.”

The woman waves her hand dismissively. “Just checking in on my favorite apprentice. You really have such promise.”

“Oh, uhm. Thank y-”

“All that talent, wasted on a witch who won’t use it.”

Lucy clasps her hands together, fidgeting. “I’m- I really don’t see-”

“You’re the most powerful being for acres and acres, darling. You could subdue this entire town with a flick of your wrist, under the right guidance.”

“But I don’t-"

“I simply don’t see why you waste your time with these mortals and their whims.”

She waves her hand, and a likeness of Jamie swirls up in smoke. “The boy - if you fancy him, why not just take what you want? He’ll adore you as long as you wish it, and when you get tired-”

“I’m not hexing Jamie!” Lucy exclaims, louder than intended. She whips around to face the door, anticipating a yell, or footsteps, or-

Nothing happens. She exhales for good measure. “I’m not hexing Jamie. He’s my friend - besides, I don’t- I don’t fancy him.”

The woman raises her translucent eyebrows. “There’s no need to be embarrassed. Plenty of witches take human lovers, there’s no shame in it. We must continue our line, after all, but really…”

“I’m not- that’s not-”

“You can’t be worried of what the town will say. These children who mock you, you needn’t tolerate them. I know you fancy yourself kind by sparing them, but eventually, as you know, their time will come-”

Lucy digs her fingernails into her palms to stop herself from screaming.

“They’re- they’re not disposable! They’re just stupid kids, they don’t mean-”

The woman throws up her hands. “Exactly, this is what I mean! Your endless patience with these _animals-”_

“Stop!”

She doesn’t mean to shout, but she can’t help it. “Just stop! I didn’t ask for any of this - I’m not hurting them! I’m not _subduing_ them! Please- please, just leave, I have homework-”

“Lucy?”

She flinches at her father’s voice, calling up from downstairs. “Is everything alright?”

She gives the woman a pointed glare and calls: “I’m on the phone, dad!”

After a second, her father gives a grunt, and Lucy huffs.

“Please. _Please_ leave.”

“I pray for the day you see reason, my child. We are better equipped than we have been in centuries - some say an uprising is coming, and I believe they are correct. You mustn’t form bonds with the sacrifices.”

Before Lucy can object, the flame drops, and the skeletal woman dissolves, leaving behind a faint smell of thyme.

Lucy darts forward to catch it before it singes the rug, closing her hands around it with a gasp.

Her fingers remain unburnt as she straightens up and places the flame back onto the wick. It clings to her hand for a moment, before resigning itself to its fate - it doesn’t stay still long, though. Lucy pulls out her books and sets them down on the table, and as soon as she looks up, she’s staring at an eerie green replica of Jamie’s face again.

“Oh, Christ. Stop that.”

_I do nothing, child. This is all you. Notice my color is the same as his eyes…?_

“Please. Please, shut up. I need to concentrate-”

_You clearly harbor affection for this… mortal - why not take what you want, instead of agonizing over short-lived affection?_

“...what?”

_The girl, the one he seems to fancy? Why does it bother you? It takes no effort to make him like you-”_

“It doesn’t bother me! Jamie can date whoever he wants! Stop- stop distracting me!”

_There’s no point in lying to me, darling. We are one and the same. I am the face of your deepest desires, your fears, your hopes. There is no pretending here._

“You’re worse than her,” Lucy hisses. “I swear, if you don’t shut up, I’ll blow you out!”

_You wouldn’t dare. It is your sacred duty to protect-_

“God! I KNOW! …I know. I can’t unleash you on this town. Please, _please_ just let me do my work in peace. Please. I don’t want to take you back to the cemetery. I don’t have time to go and stoke you there every day. So just be _quiet!”_

 

The green glow proves difficult to tune out, but Lucy does finally get her homework done. She eats dinner quickly, ignoring her father’s raised eyebrows as she darts back upstairs, mumbling about studying.

The sun has started to set, and she has just resigned herself to a long night of studying an entirely different kind of work when she hears the sound of something hitting her window.

Her heart skips, and so does the flame, reawakening where it had been dozing a mere moment ago.

She pushes the curtain aside – and sure enough, it’s Jamie, standing in her yard with a hand full of pebbles. When he sees her, he gives her a half-shrug and a lopsided smile. Then he points upwards.

She feels herself smile, too, despite her best efforts. She holds up her hand, showing two fingers. Two minutes.

 

Sneaking out the back door isn’t difficult – she’s been doing it ever since they moved here, after all, on a regular basis. Jamie’s no longer in the yard, but that doesn’t surprise her. He would have gone ahead.

She checks the neighbor’s house for lights, and when she finds none, she quickly steps through the part of the hedge that’s thinner than the rest, and makes her way around the building, to the next one down the road: Jamie’s.

The house is towered over by a gigantic, gnarly apple tree – the one feature that she’s always been jealous of, the main argument for playing at his place rather than hers, back in the day.

She approaches the tree and its familiar branches, still perfect for climbing. It’s almost too dark to see here under the leaves, but she doesn’t need to. She remembers where to go.

 

A hand stretches out towards her when she pushes herself up over the gutter, and she knows it’s also a peace offering. With a soft sigh, she clasps their fingers together and allows him to pull her up onto the roof.

“…hey, Luce.”

The sheepish smile on his face is enough to melt away whatever anger Lucy might have had left. She rolls her eyes, and drops down beside him in their usual spot.

“Hi, Jerk.”

“I’m sorry. About what they said.”

“Just drop it. It’s fine.”

Jamie frowns. “It’s not, though. I don’t- You’re nothing like what they think.”

“You don’t have to protect me, _James._ I know you’d rather not be associated-“

“You’re my best friend. So shut up.”

That actually makes her stop for a second. She doesn’t remember him ever acknowledging that, not out loud. Certainly not to other people, but not to her, either.

“…huh.”

“Look- you don’t deserve to be treated like that. I’m… I’m sorry I didn’t speak up.”

He looks genuinely sorry, and she kind of doesn’t know what to do with that.

“It’s fine,” she says again, leaning backwards until she’s lying down, eyes finally finding the sky above. “You don’t have to damage your reputation for me. I know people talk about you, too, just for hanging out with me.”

“Which is stupid!”

He’s looking down at her, but she refuses to meet his eyes. Instead, she focuses on the tiny lights, scattered across the night sky.

“They think it’s pity,” she says. “That you’re a nice guy who walks me home because his mom made him, and who talks to me because he knows I have no friends.”

Jamie crosses his arms in front of his chest.

“Which is also stupid. My mom couldn’t care less – and it’s not- it’s not fucking pity.”

“Well. You _are_ a nice guy, so-“

“Oh, shut up. You know me better.”

He’s right. Of course.

“…maybe it wouldn’t be so bad if they were right.”

Jamie, in the process of lying back as well, twists around to face her. “What?”

“Well,” Lucy says, in as neutral a tone as she can muster. “You’d certainly be better off if people didn’t see you with me. They’d stop bugging you about it, and you could stop scrambling for excuses.”

“…excuses?”

“Well, yeah! I mean, you gotta tell them something to explain why you hang out with me, right? Unless you just… stop. It’d be way less stressful for you.”

Lucy is babbling, and she knows it. She hates every word coming out of her mouth, but somehow she can’t get herself to stop.

Jamie’s gone quiet, and she refuses to look at his face because she can’t bare to see the confusion and hurt that she’s no doubt putting there with her words.

“Do you… do you want me… to stop?”

Oh, shit. Oh, _oh_ shit, that hurts.

“I’m just saying – Amy might be less reluctant to approach you, too – wouldn’t want her getting the wrong idea-“

“…the wrong idea.”

“Yeah! And you guys would be such a good match, I mean-“

“Lucy.”

“It’s what everyone’s expecting anyway, isn’t it? You’d be the dream couple in our year-“

“Luce. Hey.”

“Why wouldn’t you-“

“Look at me!”

Lucy freezes, lips pressing tightly together. She doesn’t move.

“Luce. If… if that’s really what you want – say it to my face.”

There’s a light wind, but it feels colder now.

“…because I don’t believe you. Nobody wants to be alone, and… and you don’t hate me that much, either.”

She can’t help it, her eyes snap over to his face, indignant. “I never said I hated-“

“Then stop trying to get rid of me!”

Silence follows his words, broken only by the soft rustling of the apple tree’s leaves. Their eyes are locked, and neither of them speaks.

There are angry tears in Jamie’s eyes, and nothing could have prepared Lucy for that startling sight.

“God. Why on earth do you think- why would you think I’d prefer their company over yours?”

Lucy sits up to face him, but his fierce gaze is rather intimidating. She ends up looking down at her hands instead, folding them in her lap.

“Because… well, they’re right, aren’t they? I’m weird. And… I isolate myself. I don’t have any friends, and most people are scared of me. Any… any other friendship is better than that. Wouldn’t you say?”

“No,” Jamie says. “I wouldn’t. How about you leave that decision to me, huh?”

“But… the right decision is so clear, James-“

“Yeah, it is. I’m not abandoning my best friend so other people will like me more. That’s stupid. Plus, you’re… you’re better than them, anyway.”

She looks up again, “Jamie, I-“

And she stops.

And stops.

Because his eyes- his eyes were never this green.

 

“Ah.”

The voice is his, but it’s not him. His eyes are glazing over.

“It would seem that you’ve caught me.”

Lucy backs away. Horror is creeping up on her from all sides, and the terrible, bottomless pit of fear is reopening in her stomach.

“No,” she whispers. “no. No, no, no-“

“But don’t you see, child? How easy it is to have what you want?”

She shakes her head, refusing to accept, refusing to believe-

“It’s a simple matter of adjusting chemicals, really. Didn’t even require much change with this one in the first place – I just made him a little more honest, and a little less fearful and self-deprecating. As soon as other opinions matter less, he becomes devoted to you.”

“Stop-“

“Now all you have to do is make him believe it was his choice – we’re so close, my dear, so close! Just finish it!”

Lucy presses both palms onto her eyes to stop the tears she can’t help from building, the desperation and hopelessness that wash over her.

“One thing,” she whispers, raw and bleeding with emotion, “I ask just one tiny fucking thing of you, and that’s to keep out of my FUCKING affairs, and you- you-“

“Your stubbornness will lead us nowhere-“

“Stop using his voice!” Lucy gasps, barely holding in a scream to wake the entire neighbourhood, “Stop it at once! Get out! Get OUT!”

She grabs Jamie’s shoulders and shakes him – he lets her, pliant like a puppet, eyes empty even though his body is still warm.

“This isn’t- this isn’t what I want, this was never what I wanted-“

“Darling, don’t lie to yourself-“

“Shut UP! I hate you, I _hate_ you, get out of his head!”

“You need to calm down-“

“Get OUT!” Lucy cries, and the tears are now flowing freely, “leave him ALONE, he doesn’t deserve this – just because I’m– he has nothing to do with- Stop, stop, STOP!”

“Your hair!”

Lucy only stops because she smells something burning – and within a split second, she realizes that her hair has burst into flames.

Red light licks up the side of her face, painless to her skin but singeing off her long, dark red hair at an alarming pace.

She closes her mouth and holds her breath, willing herself to return to calm, to control. A slip like this is unforgiveable, she should be way, way beyond these lapses by now.

The warmth fades, as does the light – her hair, however, she won’t be able to save.

A strange calm overtakes her now – one she didn’t seem to be able to access before. She looks up into Jamie’s lifeless eyes, and when she speaks, her voice is like a dagger.

“You will release him. Immediately.”

Without waiting for a response, she lifts her hand and makes a grabbing motion at the air.

There’s a lurch, and then the small green flame is yanked from Jamie’s head and out into the open, flickering dangerously.

“Don’t you ever, _ever_ leave that candle again, or so help me, I will douse you in water. Please, please test me. I can’t wait to be rid of you.”

For half a second she awaits some half-witty remark about how she cannot kill what makes her who she is – but everything remains silent.

Slowly and deliberately, Lucy gets to her feet. The flame rises with her.

“Jamie will not remember this. Any of this. He’ll decide not to apologize to me, or interact with me in any way, because his desire to be liked by the others is greater. This is what would have happened without your interference.”

The flame bobs, and Lucy waves her hand dismissively. “Get the fuck out of my sight.”

 

Somewhere to the east, in an abandoned graveyard, a memory stirs, a light is reignited, and an old, weathered voice whispers, “…that’s my girl.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...thank you for reading, if you did get this far :D I hope this is still interesting...? :'D


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